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Reports in Review

Blacks and Same-Sex Marriage

Jumping the Broom: A Black Perspective on Same-Gender MarriageBy the Equality Maryland Foundation, Inc. and the National Black Justice Coalition, November 2005

The Equality Maryland Foundation, Inc. and the National
Black Justice Coalition have issued a reader-friendly pamphlet calling
on African Americans to realize how important the Same Sex
Marriage movement is to vital members of their community, Black
gays and lesbians.

In Jumping The Broom: A Black Perspective On Same-Gender
Marriage, the groups take on key objections to same-sex marriage,
explaining: marriages don't have to be religious services; gay marriages
were forced to exist behind closed doors in the past—even
among well-known community activists and celebrities; nurturing
families are not only for heterosexuals; and, the word "marriage"
carries more tax, insurance and other legal protections for
a couple than the words "civil union" or "domestic partnership."

But the main point the pamphlet wants to hammer home is
that the opportunity to marry someone you love should be an individual's
choice and not necessarily sanctioned by the government.
This, they argue, is a civil right. The pamphlet explains that
"civil rights" are "the protections and privileges of personal liberty
given to all US citizens by the United States Constitution and
Bill of Rights."

Unfortunately, Jumping The Broom also relies too heavily on
comparing the Same-Sex Marriage Movement struggles with the
African American Civil Rights Movement:

Some blacks are offended when gays and lesbians equate the
same-sex marriage movement with the African American
civil rights movement. When white gays and lesbians overshadow
the voices of black gays and lesbians and discuss the
ability to marry as a matter of "civil rights," some blacks may
feel like the comparison diminishes the stain on our nation
that has resulted from centuries of slavery, lynching, and segregation.
We should remember, however, that many gays
and lesbians are members of our community, the black community,
and were an integral part of our black civil rights
movement. (p.12)

As the writers themselves appear to note, the two movements
are not equal—and have no need to be. If anything, the Same-
Sex Marriage Movement can be inspired by the African American
Civil Rights Movement without being a new version of it.

Taking over the Courts

This report is a good primer for how the
Republicans have managed to "pack" the
courts in the last two decades.

The courts constantly make decisions that
either strengthen or undermine the right to
be free from discrimination, to organize a
union, or the right to clean air and water.
However, don't look to this report for an
examination of the differences in ideology
between Right-wing and mainstream judges.
This report is about how the Right has
subverted the Constitution's checks and
balances in the selection of judges.

Article II of the Constitution gives the President
the power to nominate federal judges,
subject to the "advice and consent" of the Senate.
By having the executive and legislative
branches share power, the founders intended
for the judiciary to be the third branch of government.
Implied is the desire to nominate
judges who can count on broad or bipartisan
support. Over the centuries, a complex process
developed to meet this mandate, including the
President's consultation with the two Senators
of the state where the appointment would take
place, known as the "blue slip" process.

Republicans have completely subverted the
balanced approach that developed over the
centuries while controlling the presidency
and Congress. It started in the 1980s and early
‘90s when the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations
made decidedly one-sided appointments.
The Clinton Administration reverted
to the old practice of nominating consensus
candidates, but it was thwarted even in those
efforts when the Democrats lost the majority
in the Senate in 1995. Mostly through delaying
tactics, the Senate Republicans managed
to avoid the nomination of many judges,
consensus candidates or not.

Bush Jr. took these efforts one step further
by nominating candidates who were even
further Right than Reagan and Bush Sr.'s
nominees. Once the Republicans obtained the
majority in the Senate in 2002, they began
rushing nominations and sidelined the "blue
slip" process in maneuvers that leave a bad
taste in anyone's mouth. Only one check
remained to stop the flow of right-wing
ideologues: the filibuster. To eliminate this
final obstacle, Senate Majority Leader Frist
proposed a dramatic alteration of long-standing
Senate rules to bypass the filibuster,
referred to as a "nuclear option." This option
was eventually avoided by a compromise, which
further eroded the voice of the Democratic
minority.

As a result, today the dealings between the
White House and the Senate regarding judicial
selections are a far cry from cooperation.
The Leadership Conference report ends with
an impassioned plea to take the politics out
of the process again. This way we may one day
realize the promise of the Constitution: a
truly independent judiciary "free from political
winds and popular beliefs, that blindly
dispenses justice."

There's a new wrinkle in the Christian
Right's use of homophobia: an ex-gay movement
targeted at youth. In response to teens
coming out at earlier ages and finding new support
in many schools and faith communities,
groups like Focus on the Family and Exodus
International have developed programs to
"convert" gay and lesbian adolescents to heterosexuality.
This 100-page report skillfully
analyzes the trend.

The authors identify three waves of the
Christian Right's ex-gay activism: early
attempts to "cure" adult homosexuals, appeals
to gay men and lesbians to make lifestyle
changes themselves in a Christian context, and
now a focus on Christian youth (and their parents).
Challenging the concept of a "cure," the
authors' review of the available research on the
ex-gay movement's "conversion therapy" and
other tactics shows these strategies do not
accomplish their intended goal. A key 2002
study by Shidlo and Schroeder instead found
people suffered even greater depression, suicidal
thoughts, sexual dysfunction, and rejection
of religion after the "therapy."

The report focuses on several of the groups
that have proliferated in recent years. Focus
on the Family runs a traveling ex-gay roadshow
called Love Won Out. Exodus International
now hosts Exodus Youth. Love in Action, the
oldest program, runs Refuge, a substance
abuse and "sexual addiction" treatment program
for teens. And PFOX, Parents and
Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, modeled
directly from PFLAG, Parents and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays, provides advocacy
for family members worried about what
they see as dangerous cultural influences.

They are all closely networked and heavily
influenced by strict Biblical interpretations
of homosexuality as a sin and discredited
psychological theories on its causes. The
report chronicles the history of the ex-gay
movement from its beginnings in 1973, the
same year the American Psychiatric Association
stopped describing homosexuality as a
mental disorder. The report also notes that the
waves of ex-gay activism were crafted in
response to the gains of the LGBT movement.

Their discussion of an ex-gay conference
illustrates the movements' tactics: targeting
Christian families and church communities,
presenting testimony of conversion and
redemption in a highly charged religious
atmosphere, and promoting the pseudoscience
of anti-gay research. Among them:
clients will feel better after conversion; homosexuality
is caused by dominant mothers,
passive, unemotional fathers, and sexual abuse;
and homosexuality is linked to alcoholism,
drug addiction, and suicide.

Louisiana's failure to help displaced voters
from New Orleans vote after Katrina only
highlights a longstanding scandal: it is harder
for African Americans in Louisiana to exert
political power today than it was 125 years ago.
Although almost one-third of Louisiana's
population is African American, no African
American has ever been elected to a Louisiana
state court or the U.S. Congress, or joined the
bench of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

First enacted under Lyndon Johnson in
1965, the Voting Rights Act is the primary
lever for whatever political power African
Americans have achieved in the state; it is
scheduled to expire in 2007. By revealing
how officials with stubborn supremacist
attitudes sought to block Black voting power,
this report shows why it is vital to renew the
Voting Rights Act.

Among the stealth tactics Louisiana whites
use to maintain power are exclusionary back
room decision-making and gerrymandering
that dilutes or concentrates black's voter
strength, whichever is most damaging. Both
are considered discriminatory by the Voting
Rights Act, and, according to the report, the
US Department of Justice has issued objections
to Louisiana voting changes 96 times
since 1982.

The examples of whites pouring "old poison
into new bottles" to preserve power—
drawn primarily from court records—are
shocking. For instance, then-Governor Treen
resisted any redistricting plan in the 1980s that
included a majority Black district for New
Orleans, arguing a hypocritical race-neutral
position: "districting schemes motivated by
racial considerations, however benign,
smacked of racism."

J. Edgar Hoover and other government
spies rarely made any pretense to legality.
They just did what they wanted. But Bush and
Co. seem to enjoy sprinkling legal justifications
here and there for such misdeeds as
warrantless spying on Americans and mistreatment
of Guantanamo prisoners. They create
a quasi-legality that thumbs its nose at the
law and dares the courts to answer back.

This was a brief written at the request of a
Congressperson about whether President
Bush could bypass the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court and spy on people in the
US without a warrant. They patiently expose
the cynical legal ploys of the Bush Administration,
including the claim that it can bypass
the court because of Congress' "declaration of
war" (legal permission for Bush to use force).
No, they say, Congress revised the act that created
the court right after September 11th
and made no such exception. The Bushites also
refer to court cases decided before the law was
enacted to justify their scheme. The staff
lawyers strip away such legal fig leaves shrouding
Bush's lawlessness but it remains to be
seen whether Congress heeds this report.